iMac Pro

New Mac comes with 18-core Xeon chips, Radeon Vega graphics and a sky-high price tag, writes Michael Simon

Over the years, the iMac has gone from a sweet-coloured entry-level machine to one of the most powerful all-in-ones money can buy, but it’s never quite been the best machine for professionals. But with the new iMac Pro unveiled at WWDC that’s set to launch in December, that’s all about to change.

This new model isn’t just a better version of the 27in model – it’s both the most powerful Mac ever made and one of the most expensive. Seriously, it’s as if the Mac Pro and the 27in iMac had a baby.

The new machine is dressed in a new sleek space-grey aluminium enclosure with a Magic Keyboard, Magic Trackpad 2, and Magic Mouse 2 to match. It comes with the same 5K screen as the regular 2017 iMac (also unveiled at WWDC), but inside, it’s been radically redesigned.

An all-new thermal design features a dual centrifugal fan system, which allows the machine to deliver up to 80 percent more cooling capacity than other models while still letting it operate just as quietly.

Inside, you’ll get Intel Xeon processors up to 18 cores, a Radeon Pro Vega GPU with up to 11 teraflops of single-precision compute power for real-time 3D rendering and high-quality VR. The iMac Pro also supports up to 4TB of SSD, up to 128GB of ECC memory, and 10Gbit/s ethernet. You’ll also get four Thunderbolt 3 ports so you can connect two highperformance RAID arrays and two 5K displays (44 million pixels for those keeping score) at the same time.

All that power, however, comes at a pretty steep price. The new iMac Pro is available in a pretty hefty base configuration for a whopping $5,000 (£TBC). It will ship in December 2017, so you’ll have plenty of time to save.